Solar panels typically include one or more strings of solar cells. Adjacent solar cells in a string may overlap one another in a cascading arrangement. For example, continuous strings of solar cells that form a solar panel are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/510,008, filed Oct. 8, 2014, and entitled “Module Fabrication of Solar Cells with Low Resistivity Electrodes,” the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Producing solar panels with a cascaded cell arrangement can reduce the resistance due to inter-connections between the strips, and can increase the number of solar cells that can fit into a solar panel.
One method of making such a panel includes sequentially connecting the busbars of adjacent cells and combining them. One type of panel (as described in the above-noted patent application) includes a series of cascaded strips created by dividing complete solar cells into strips, and then cascading the strips to form one or more strings.
In some environments, photovoltaic (PV) modules exhibit great strain due to effects of heating, and in particular effects of heating components, such as copper busbars, that have a disparate coefficient of expansion in comparison to other components. This strain can be exacerbated by non-uniform heating of the PV module, often caused by partial sun shading of the PV panel. These heating effects can result in non-uniform cyclical loading onto joints of a strip, resulting in premature failure of joints.